IASSISTers and librarians are doin' it for themselves

Hey IASSISTers (gents, pardon for the video pun - couldnt’ resist),

Are librarians at your institutions struggling to get up to speed with research data management (RDM)? If they’re not, they probably should be. Library organisations are publishing reports and issuing recommendations left and right, such as the LIBER (Association of European Research Libraries) 2012 report, “Ten Recommendations for Libraries to Get Started with Research Data Management” (PDF). Just last week Nature published an article highlighting what the Great and the Good are doing in this area: Publishing Frontiers: The Library Reboot.

So the next question is, as a data professional, what are you doing to help the librarians at your institution get up to speed with RDM? Imagine (it isn’t that hard for some of us) having gotten your Library masters degree sometime in the last century and now being told your job includes helping researchers manage their data? Librarians are sturdy souls, but that notion could be a bitter pill for someone who went into librarianship because of their love of books, right?

So you are a local expert who can help them. No doubt there will be plenty of opportunities for them to return the favour.

If you don’t consider yourself a trainer, that’s okay. Tell them about the Do-It-Yourself Research Data Management Training Kit for Librarians, from EDINA and Data Library, University of Edinburgh. They can train themselves in small groups, making use of reading assignments in MANTRA, reflective writing questions, group exercises from the UK Data Archive, and plenty of discussion time, to draw on their existing rich professional experience.

And then you can step in as a local expert to give one or more of the short talks to lead off the two hour training sessions in your choice of five RDM topics.Or if you’re really keen, you can offer to be a facilitator for the training as a whole.Either way it’s a great chance to build relationships across the institution, review your own knowledge, and raise your local visibility. If you’re with me so far, read on for the promotional message about the training kit.

DIY Research Data Management Training Kit for Librarians

EDINA and Data Library, University of Edinburgh is pleased to announce the public release of the Do-It-Yourself Research Data Management Training Kit for Librarians, under a CC-BY licence:

http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/libtraining.html.

 The training kit is designed to contain everything needed for librarians in small groups to get themselves up to speed on five key topics in research data management - with or without expert speakers.

 The kit is a package of materials used by the Data Library in facilitating RDM training with a small group of librarians at the University of Edinburgh over the winter of 2012-13. The aim was to reuse the MANTRA course developed by the Data Library for early career researchers in a blended learning approach for academic liaison librarians.

 The training comprises five 2-hour face-to-face sessions. These open with short talks followed by group exercises from the UK Data Archive and long discussions, in a private collegiate setting. Emphasis is placed on facilitation and individual learning rather than long lectures and passive listening. MANTRA modules are used as reading assignments and reflective writing questions are designed to help librarians ‘put themselves in the shoes of the researcher’. Learning is reinforced and put into practice through an independent study assignment of completing and publishing an interview with a researcher using the Data Curation Profile framework developed by D2C2 at Purdue University Libraries.

 The kit includes:

 * Promotional slides for the RDM Training Kit

• Training schedule

• Research Data MANTRA online course by EDINA and Data Library, University of Edinburgh: http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra

• Reflective writing questions

• Selected group exercises (with answers) from UK Data Archive, University of Essex - /Managing and sharing data: Training resources./ September, 2011 (PDF). Complete RDM Resources Training Pack available: http://data-archive.ac.uk/create-manage/training-resources

• Podcasts (narrated presentations) for short talks by the original Edinburgh speakers (including from the DCC) if running course without ’live’ speakers.

• Presentation files - if learners decide to take turns presenting each topic.

• Evaluation forms

• Independent study assignment: Data Curation Profile, from D2C2, Purdue University Libraries. Resources available: http://datacurationprofiles.org/

 As data librarians, we are aware of a great deal of curiosity and in some cases angst on the part of academic librarians regarding research data management. The training kit makes no assumptions about the role of librarians in supporting research data management, but aims to empower librarians to support each other in gaining confidence in this area of research support, whether or not they face the prospect of a new remit in their day to day job. It is aimed at practicing librarians who have much personal and professional experience to contribute to the learning experience of the group.